Monday, February 4, 2013

Slut of the Month: Peggy Lee

Born Norma Delores Egstrom in North Dakota in 1920, Peggy Lee endured something that makes-or-breaks many women, the loss of her mother at an early age, and an absent/uncaring father. According to Wikipedia:

Her mother died when Lee was just four years old.[3]
Afterward, her father married Min Schaumber, who treated her with great
cruelty while her alcoholic father did little to stop it.[4] As a result, she developed her musical talent and took several part-time jobs so that she could be away from home.

When the Crowds Were Loud, She Went Soft

It was at the Doll House in Palm Springs,
California that Peggy Lee first developed the soft and "cool" style
that has become her trademark. Unable to shout above the clamor
of the Doll House audience, Miss Lee tried to snare its attention
by lowering her voice. The softer she sang the quieter the audience
became. She has never forgotten the secret, and it has given her
style its distinctive combination of the delicate and the driving,
the husky and the purringly seductive. One of the members of the
Doll House audience was Frank Bering, the owner of Chicago’s Ambassador
West Hotel, who invited her to sing in his establishment’s Buttery
Room.

Benny Goodman discovered Peggy Lee’s
vocalizing in the Buttery Room at a time when he was looking for
a replacement for Helen Forrest. Miss Lee joined Goodman’s band
in July, 1941, when the band was at the height of its popularity,
and for over two years she toured the United States with the most
famous swing outfit of the day, playing hotel engagements, college
proms, theater dates, and radio programs.

As The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music observes, "Her
smoky, laid-back sexuality had something teasingly neurotic about it,
vulnerable but also untouchable in the end." Like her label-mates Frank
Sinatra and Nat Cole, she achieved and sustained vast popularity without
compromising her refined musical principles. She assembled a
wide-ranging repertoire – ballads, swing and Latin tunes, novelty
numbers – and was one of the few white singers capable of interpreting
black music without condescension, introducing bluesy songs previously
recorded by Little Willie John, Joe Williams and Ray Charles to
mainstream listeners. Her infallible rhythmic instincts served her well
at all tempos, and her chameleonlike ability to shift character from
song to song enabled her to communicate a rainbow of emotions.

She was nominated for 12 Grammies, ironically winning only two for Is That All There Is? (She was also given a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.)

And She Inspired Miss Piggy

My mother used to live in North Dakota where Peggy Lee sang on the local
radio station before she became a famous jazz singer. When I first
created Miss Piggy I called her Miss Piggy Lee—as both a joke and an
homage. Peggy Lee was a very independent woman, and Piggy certainly is
the same. But as Piggy's fame began to grow, nobody wanted to upset
Peggy Lee, especially because we admired her work. So, the Muppet's name
was shortened to Miss Piggy.

In honor of Valentines' Day, coming up, I must share this clip from my favorite romantic movie.

Peggy Lee didn't just sing the tune, but actually wrote the lyrics. (She also supplied the voices of the Siamese cats, and "Darling," in addition to the female dog, "Peg," clearly modeled after her persona.)

Later, when Disney discovered this cool new technology called videotape and began making a boatload of money by selling their back catalogs in videotape format, they figured no way Peggy Lee and their other musicians were entitled to share in the profits. After all, they hadn't signed contracts that included videotape, had they?

Disney Messed With the Wrong Bitch

Miss Peggy Lee, and after a long court battle, the courts, saw it very differently. Without her efforts, and the precedent setting court case, many recording and other artists who signed contracts in the days before videotape, DVR, live streaming (and whatever comes next) would not be receiving the royalties they do on works from classic works like Lady and the Tramp.

What A Dame!

In her seventies, despite polymelitis rheumatosis that put her in a wheelchair, a broken pelvis, diabetes, and (rumors of) heavy drinking, Peggy Lee was still giving sell-out stage performances. Writing. Painting pictures.

Interviews & Podcasts!

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